nix
by PureWaterLily
Summary: In ten minutes, existence will seize to be.


9.

The fighting stops from all sides. All eyes are towards the sky, the radiation of the sun, and a moon that only grows. Bigger and bigger, and it does not _stop_, so everyone else does.

The weapons drop, the chakra of bijuu, once vibrant and alive, quiets. The war has halted, but the sounds of the animals do not return. The shuffles of the wind against leaves do not return.

There is only silence, as the moon grows twice the size of the neighboring sun. Then four times, then eight. And everyone stares, waiting, expecting it to stop. Expecting to wake up.

The first person to react, to break the silence is Naruto, as he seizes Obito by the collar. "What have you _done_?"

Obito doesn't know.

"How do you stop it!" Naruto yells, the only voice in the entire field.

Madara doesn't know.

8.

Obito says he doesn't care what happens anymore.

But that isn't true.

The past decade and half, he has been dreaming. Of a plane of grass, the endless blue sky, the breeze that blows past her hair as she smiles back at him. He has been dreaming of an ideology, in which every dying moment can be regained. In which he and his teammates are twelve again, his sensei alive.

He expects time to be reversible, that life has a second chance, so it doesn't matter what happens now, as long as it remains possible to go _back_.

Obito doesn't care what happens _now_, as long there is a _past _and a _future. _A redo button and a _tomorrow_.

God just doesn't care.

And there's nothing anyone can do to make God care.

7.

"How do you stop it!"

Sakura has the answer.

For her entire life, she has pursued a boy. At school she was not athletic, never been, but she breathed in a library. To impress him, she read, and read, and read. He was naturally intelligent, but she could be smart through diligence.

She still does not know whether her studies made anything of her, other than being the person who could solve every physics problem on an examination everyone has forgotten.

And this is a physics problem like no other. She has breathed in the library, and that library now looks at the moon in center stage, and lists the size, mass, velocity. Trajectory. Spin. Energy. Gravity. Density. Field. _Collision._

Mankind can launch a satellite into space, but there isn't enough chakra in the world to stop that.

"How?"

Sakura has the answer.

_You can't_.

6.

_You can't_.

No one can slither out of this one, and the realization numbs some to the core.

Orochimaru is a man free of most fears, because he is a man free of sentiment. He needs not love, nor conquest, nor beauty, nor peace, because they but castles made of sand, ready to be swept by the waves, all gone the second you stop living.

Even a living snake, able to breath, to think, to eat, is more glorious than the most reverend hero beneath the dirt, because as long as the snake survives, the snake still has _something_.

Orochimaru is a man free of sentiment, so he can give up anything_ – _glory of Hokage, respect of peers, life of others, sense of morality, purpose of self – for another day. Another day to let him hear music, taste the sweetness of fruit.

Or even just grovel in the dirt. He can forfeit anything.

Anything except _everything_.

5.

All men fear death.

But Madara, like most men, can accept death, if under his own conditions.

He refuses to die without a legacy. A mighty impact on the earth that inspires and creates, that even when he is gone, the world is still his. Like fine-tuned watch, the world forever tick like the way he wants it to tick, serve as evidence of his existence and his work.

In his death, he wants to be what Hashirama has been in his life.

His wish is slipping from his fingers.

4.

The will of fire is legacy. Through love and war, reality and illusion, life and death, as long as they can leave behind a legacy. As long can humanity can keep surviving.

When Kakashi makes his proposal, everyone who is still hopeful, still struggling to seize remaining seconds to come up with a solution, accepts, and he regains the hand of an old friend.

Never has any teleportation seemed so slow, mumbled words taking painful second after second.

"The kamui is not self-sustaining. There is no oxygen, water, food-"

"We'll send those to them."

"And how long do you think they'll last?"

While they still argue, Kurenai clutches her child closely to her chest. She isn't the only mother.

Naruto interferes and deals a punch to Shikamaru's jaw. "250 seconds. Shut up, and tell him what to send to the other dimension."

3.

They need the sun, the soil, the rivers and seas, the vast air. They need the trees to create that air, they need the animals to help those trees. They need agriculture, the worms and beetles underneath, the birds and bees above. They need the prey and predators, the cycles of seasons.

Kurama sends them that sun. The other bijuu join in, converting their energies back into the elements they once were.

The kamui is still too slow, cannot take all of that in fast enough, and Madara knows this.

But he nonetheless release his grip and sends to them the warmth of fire, and the plants of life.

2.

The moon dominates the entire sky, and never has there been a sight more beautiful. Even with the eclipse of the sun complete, final artificial lights glow against the dark. The air spirals in colors, toes lift off the ground as if taken on a dance.

From where he sits, Sasuke closes his eyes.

Once, there was a man who was great, and he had his sons. Those sons passed the torch down to their sons and daughters, through the blood of the clan. Sasuke knows the torch eventually fell down to his father and mother, then to his brother.

And Itachi has smiled and placed everything in into his hands, flames old but burning in hope. A last legacy.

With a soft blow, that flame flickers.

Then extinguishes.

1.

It takes ten minutes to roll out of bed and brush your teeth.

It takes ten minutes to run from the house to the bridge.

It takes ten minutes to wait in a ramen line.

It takes a little more than ten minutes to go through your life, ask yourself what you want, what is important, _who is important_. Your father in his merry laughs at the dinner table, your mother in her hopeless exasperation, your best friend standing up for you in school, slamming gum into your bully's hair.

And then there is this guy, in his goofy laughs and blabbering ideas, immature pranks and unfulfilled promises. This guy, with his chakra the aurora light of the night, keeping the vortex of kamui open, but still finding the time to send you a smile and extend his hand.

But it doesn't take more than ten _seconds_ to... 9.

Just run... 8.

To him... 7.

Take his hand... 6.

Open your mouth... 5.

And... 4.

Tell him... 3.

"NARUTO, I-" 2.

Naruto just keeps that goofy smile, when she becomes the last thing he throws into the kamui. 1.

Love you.

0.

The baby finally stops crying.

And silence is no more.


End file.
